Florida Senate Bills to Look Out For – 2017

This is a working document being updated as bills come in. In order for a bill to become law the same version has to pass the House and Senate and be signed by the Governor. The House is unwieldy and harder to influence so I’m focusing on the Senate. We expect some 1,500 bills to be filed by the filing deadline of March 7th. With only ~250 filed we have a long way to go. Please leave a comment with corrections, additions, deletions, etc. Contacting Senators now and attending committee meetings is paramount in influencing these bills.

Bolded bills are ones to look out.

Education:

SB2 : Major higher education bill. Would expand bright futures to cover 100% tuition, some fees, and $300 for books. Pushes students to graduate in 4 years, gives universities ability to adopt block tuition (pay for 15 credit hours no matter how many are taken), expands 2 year college to 4 year university pathway, expands scholarship program for 1st time students.

SB4: Adds ~$4 million to hire faculty at universities. Focus on medicine, law, graduate level business, and the like.

SB 302: – would make it harder to arrest poor people who cannot pay court costs. It’s a good start but doesn’t go far enough. Have to show burden to pay fees before licence is revoked which could introduce bias. Also takes a lot for poor people to come before a judge to argue that they’re too poor to afford fees.

Worker’s Rights:

SB410/HB219: Adds gender identity to anti-discrimination prohibitions in employment. Also adds the “Helen Gordon Davis Fair Pay Protection Act” which prohibits employers from asking about past wages or disallowing workers to discuss their wages with each other.

Voting Rights:

SB270: Proposal to state constitution to restore voting rights for most felons. HB51 and HB53 in the House.

HB 409 would require county Supervisor of Elections officers to text voters on the first day of early voting and also on election day. This bill would increase voter participation so it’s unlikely the Republican controlled House, Senate, and Governor will support it.

3 thoughts on “Florida Senate Bills to Look Out For – 2017”

What do you know about SB 10 that is to purchase land for a reservoir to catch the Lake Okeechobee run off?

Joe Negron
Page Liked · January 27 ·

I look forward to discussing the plan to end the polluted discharges that are plaguing our community, destroying our estuaries and harming our local businesses. Please tune-in on Wednesday at noon to facebook.com/tcpalm/ for my live discussion with Isadora Rangel of the Stuart News.

SB 10 is one I overlooked. I didn’t think it had much footing because the House didn’t seem very interested. It’s really hard to tell what big sugar is going to do in this political climate. A lot of the sugar subsidies might go away under a Trump administration and there’s no telling what could happen if the Cuban embargo is actually lifted and their sugar comes rushing into American markets.

I point all this out because they have the ability with their campaign influence to move or stall SB10. This is especially true for the un-filed House version. The 153,000 acres that big sugar would be selling would be a huge profit to them, especially considering how much they’ve polluted the land they’re selling and the uncertainty of their future.

I feel like the progressive forces are lining up with much of the Republican Party who were highly effected by these discharges last year but is it enough to beat big sugar? They’re the lynch pin in all of this.

About

The Straw Hat is a political blog primarily written by Jeremiah Tattersall based out of Gainesville, Florida. The views and opinions expressed here belong solely to those who wrote them. For more information contact us at info@thestrawhat.org